What if she'd left!
by lwrnld
Summary: My 1st fanfic so please be nice. Slightly AU. starts season one after Peyton finds Brooke at Lucas' house and unfolds from there. reviews welcome  i officially suck at summaries so please read...promise it gets better inside


Disclaimer - i don't own OTH or anything/anyone from it (would be fun if i did though).

**WHAT IF?**

_The rugged looking blonde walked up on to the stage with a small smile playing across his face. He stood before the lectern with his hands in his pockets and his head down for a moment then he began speaking….._

"What would life be like? I guess that's a question we all ask ourselves at some point in our lives. What would've happened if we turned left and not right, if we said Yes not No. This is one of those tales… What would my life have been like if I had followed Peyton out the door that night? Would I be here now talking to you? Would we all have had as hard a time these last few years as we did? Who knows! So here's my story…….

It was 11 years ago that she left my room. She'd come to see me to ask for another chance at us being together, at us being a couple and I'd been standing there with another girl…her best friend. As she left that night she looked over her shoulder with the same look that had first made my heart skip and then she closed the door. I turned around shrugged and went to my bed with Brooke, thinking nothing more and hoping to see Peyton at school the next day. What I didn't know then was that the look she'd thrown over her shoulder at me was the last I would see of her for a long time. Unbeknownst to me or Brooke she'd gone, left town without a word to us, to Haley or Nathan hell even without saying a word to her Dad.

For the first few days we all figured that she'd just gone away for a few days to "collect her thoughts" as they say. After a week though, when no one had heard from her, we got real worried and began looking for her. We called her, e-mailed, ran by her usual haunts, no luck even thought about calling the cops. By the time we'd managed to get ahold of her dad to ask him what he knew it'd been nearly two weeks since she'd been seen. That was when we found out that her Dad knew where she was… course we couldn't get him to tell us anything other than "She's gone and she ain't coming back. Get over it." That was about when we figured we'd lost her. I don't know who got hurt the most, myself or Brooke. Sure I'd lost a friend and a girl who I'd wanted since like the third grade but Brooke… she'd lost her best friend, a girl who had been there through everything with her. The only thing I did know then was that home no longer felt like home anymore… like the thing that had made this town my home was no longer around.

I guess you all know the things that happened over that year, the team losing their unbeaten record due to my missed shot, the school shooting where Jimmy Edwards killed my uncle Keith, mine and Nate's car accidents. The thing is, bad as those things were, the effect Peyton's leaving had on me and Brooke…well it hurt like hell, worse than any of the other crap from that year. It's taken eleven years for us to recover from how far we fell after she left that night, eleven years for us to recover the lives we had before that night.

So like I said, Peyton came to see me that night, to tell me she made a mistake and I turned her down for Brooke… I never realised just how much one choice could come back to haunt a man. Y'see after we came to realise why Peyton'd gone, why she'd left us… her friends and loved ones, well me and Brooke something changed for us after that. Before Peyton had come round me and Brooke had been at the start of something. I don't know if the right word is good but that's certainly what it felt like anyways. After she left that night we went to bed telling ourselves that we'd talk to her in the morning and sort it out with each other…that we'd all be friends. As we both came to realise that we would never get that chance it began to eat at us in different ways. Yeah, me and Brooke continued on as a couple for a long while after that almost a year but things were different. It wasn't "good" anymore… something had changed both between us and in our own hearts. Over the next year we stuck together throughout all of the crap that happened to us all but we began to fight constantly, sometimes over the strangest, littlest, silliest things. By the time that Nate and I went back into the school to try to rescue Haley from Jimmy Edwards I honestly think that Brooke hated me. I know from the arguments we had over that year that she blamed me for the loss of her best friend…for the loss of Peyton. I mean yeah her and Haley became good... no GREAT friends but it was never enough for her. They didn't have the same connection that she and Peyton had had… the same need for each other that true best friends have. I guess that's the reason why Brooke began drinking as much as she did.

I mean, as you all know there was no one like Brooke for throwing a party, getting drunk and having a good time but this drinking was different. It was like she was drinking to escape not just to have a good time. I guess I realised how bad it'd gotten for her when she showed up for school wasted out of her mind. From what Haley said she was drinking to escape all right… to escape from the pain of losing her friend, the worry about where she was and what she was doing and I guess the anger at her leaving. I can understand the other emotion she felt… anger. Anger at Peyton for leaving, anger at herself for not chasing after Peyton that night, anger at me for being at the root of all of it. See I can understand leaving somewhere to escape something that's painful to you but leaving your family and friends behind without a word that hurts them. And after a while that hurt can turn to anger and after 6 months of Peyton being gone there was a lot of anger being felt by those of us left behind, Brooke more than most. Y'see there's something not many people knew about Brooke… she may've seemed like a strong, confident and in-your-face kinda girl but that attitude was founded on a shaky base… her friendships. When Peyton left us behind that night Brooke found herself alone… and… she couldn't cope with that. I wasn't enough of a replacement and the drink became a crutch to hide the terrible loneliness she felt.

I think that's why she left town herself in the end. I just think that it became too much for her to walk these streets. The same streets that she and Peyton used to walk together, the shops they used to blitz on Saturdays, the cafes and bars that they used to hit for a girly lunch or a night out. I know little of what happened to her after she left town, only what I heard from Mouth or from Haley. See when Brooke left town she stopped all contact with me although she did still keep contact with Hales and Mouth. They used to tell me some of what she was up to for a while…drugs, drifting around from one hell to another, the flirting with prostitution but after a few months of hearing about the latest low that Brooke'd gone to I began to unravel myself and stopped listening. After that I heard little but from what little I do remember I know Brooke took another 5 or 6 years to manage to climb out of the depths she'd fallen to. I don't know much about what she's up to these days but the last I heard she'd cleaned herself up, started some college course, in fashion I think and married…. a doctor up 'round Chicago way. I'm glad for her… really I am… I'm glad to hear that she has finally found some peace and a way to move on with her life. She deserves to be happy and I'm happy that she's finally found one. The only other thing I do know is that the doctor she married is Mouth and I can't think of a better person for her.

So how did I deal with things after Peyton disappeared that night? I pulled away. Doesn't sound like much I know but let me explain more. I didn't only pull away from Brooke but I pulled away from life itself… from the world I guess. It used to be a joke between me, Brooke and Peyton when they called me "Broody" but after Peyton left town "Broody" doesn't come close to how I was. By the end of things between me and Brooke she wasn't calling me "Broody" anymore, I was being called a lot of other things from "cold" to "stone-faced heartless bastard". It became easier for me to avoid feeling because if I felt then it hurt. Where Brooke turned to anger and excess to escape from the pain I hid from it. It was easier to do that then acknowledge it… easier to run from the pain then to face it. Y'see by the time of the shooting at the school, when Keith got killed only three people could get through the barrier I built up. Those three, Nate... Haley and Skills were my connection to the world. When Keith died those three were the only people who knew just how much it hurt me to lose him. Even my mom, who'd been dating Keith at the time couldn't understand why I never showed the grief that she did.

I began to get a rep in school as a loner… mysterious Luke who never feels anything. Even when the whole school found out just how bad things had gotten for Brooke they couldn't understand how I didn't react to her descent into hell. My rep did have one good part though not that I planned it that way. I helped me win basketball games. Y'see the other schools found out about my rep as "untouchable…unshakeable by anything" and it, well, freaked them out. I mean look at it from their point of view, if they can't shake someone during the game then they're facing someone who won't back down from a challenge or get affected by the stress of being 5 points down with 30 seconds to go. It REALLY used to worry them. After a game or two the opposing players began to retreat from me. In a way I came to enjoy the feeling of taking the court and seeing the opposing point guard flinching as I looked at them. They used to say that I had the eyes of a madman, like nothing or no one scared me.

In a way I guess they were right. You don't believe me? You try losing the girl you've loved since like the third grade… not losing her like she's dead, I mean losing her like you know she's still alive but you can't reach her. It wasn't just the fact that she left and I didn't have a chance to say goodbye that hurt so much I had to mentally run away but it was knowing that it was my fault. My fault that she left, my fault that Brooke fell apart, my fault that so many people's lives were damaged… Peyton's, Brooke's, mine, Nate's, Haley's, Peyton's dad's and all of the others that were a part of our life our friends and family. It was that feeling that I hid from. Y'see I never could take being at fault even when I was at fault, I just didn't like it at all cos well, I'm somewhat of a perfectionist at heart.

After school finished, about 6-7 months after Brooke left town I came to a decision. I wasn't gonna live my life not knowing where Peyton was, I was gonna find her… I needed to find her, if only to find some peace for myself. I mean with Peyton gone, Brooke falling apart, my mom raising my new sister, Skills and Nate and Haley getting ready for college there was nothing keeping me in Tree Hill. So with no reason to stay around… I left, took Keiths old mustang and took off across the country.

For the next few years I drove across the country going everywhere I could think of that Peyton might've gone to. I drove through the places we used to talk about the backwoods of Virginia and Maine, the deserts of Texas and Arizona. I looked at the famous art areas of the country…. Greenwich village in New York, Downtown San Francisco, Helena up in Montana. I checked out the famous music places that I knew Peyton would've loved, LA, Vegas, Chicago, New Orleans, Miami I must've driven all over the damn place. When I ran low on money I stopped somewhere and worked for a while to get gas money. When I got hungry or tired I ate, slept and then moved on. I kept in touch with Hales and Nate by cell-phone and the first thing I always used to ask them was "have you heard anything yet, have you seen her?". I guess it got to annoy them after a while because our conversations got more and more uncomfortable and eventually they stopped answering when I called.

I must've crossed the country like 20, 30 times over the years and seen some really beautiful sights. Eventually after 7 years I gave up searching. I mean it'd been 8 nearly 9 years since I'd last seen Peyton, for all I knew she could've changed her image and may not even look the same as I remembered her. I finally figured that if Peyton didn't want to be found then she wasn't gonna be, course it did take me nearly 9 years to figure that out. I eventually settled down, not back in Tree Hill though, it still hurt too much to come back there. I'd visited a couple of times over the years, mostly to see my little sister and my mom and, of course, to catch up with Haley and Nate. Every time though it nearly killed me driving into town and remembering everything I'd lost because of that one night's decision. It did make me decide that I couldn't live there so I moved to Savannah down in Georgia. Good basketball team, at least at NCAA level, nice little town all told and I'd a few old friends living there including Skills and Whitey so I moved in.

I did go back to Tree Hill once more though… to see Peyton's dad, Larry. He damn sure wasn't happy to see me but then I guess I can't blame him for that. I mean I did cost him his daughter in a way. I didn't stay long though, just asked him if he was still in contact with Peyton and if he was could he give her something for me. He was suspicious at first though but he did agree to pass on a letter for me. What did it say? Think back to everything I've just said to you, THAT was what I put in the letter along with three other things. They were an apology for hurting her all those years previously, my address and a request for her to contact me. Just once to let me know she was alive, if only to give myself some peace. The same peace that Brooke had finally found.

After leaving off that letter I headed back down to Savannah and began trying to rebuild my life. About a month after I dropped off that letter I had a visitor at my apartment. I was sitting in the house trying to read after a crappy day at work when I heard a knock at my door. When I opened it I saw her. She hadn't changed a bit in 9 years. She still had that same beauty, that same wide-eyed innocent, lip trembling beauty that I pictured every night for 9 years since she left town. Hell it's kinda funny y'know even after nine years apart from her and after all of the crap we'd been through just one look from Peyton made my heart stop. I never did ask her why she'd come back, too scared I guess. I reckon what I'd put in that letter had some effect though or maybe she'd just had enough of running herself and wanted to reconnect somehow. Whatever the reason though I didn't care, I was just happy to see her again.

At first I thought she was only coming by to say hi and she'd then be away again to wherever she'd been hiding all those years. I was sure wrong about that. Y'see there's something else I have to tell you about Peyton and I. We weren't only friends but we both have this really rare blood type. Something like only one-in-a-billion rarity the doctor once told us back in high school. Why's this important well a couple of weeks after she returned into my life I found out why she'd returned. She was ill. Some kind of kidney disease, never could pronounce those long medical terms. She'd come back looking for help. Do you know how angry some one can get when they are hurt by a loved one? Well try multiplying that by around a couple of thousand and you begin to get close to the flash of anger I felt when she told me why she'd returned to my life.

With that kind of anger rushing through me you'd expect me to kick her out right? Wrong, y'see that's one of the things with Peyton I save her, it's what I do. Why I do that is kinda complex but it basically comes down to one thing; she saved me from a lonely life when she brought me and Haley into the fold after I joined the team and I saved her from everything…simply put I owe her and I ALWAYS pay my debts. I mean, Yeah, I was angry but it was Peyton y'know. She needed my help at that point and I, well I had to give it. So I did, I gave her a kidney. I guess for a while after helping her I half-expected her to leave again but she didn't. She stuck around and we finally got our chance together.

As she said herself, a couple of weeks ago, in her wedding vows "I gave you my heart long ago, Luke now I've finally gotten something of you I can never lose either.". Yeah we got married last week. Sounds pretty quick right, I mean we'd only been together for 2 years but, well, I didn't wanna turn out like my dad running out on his own kid an all. Yeah you heard me right there. Peyton found out she was pregnant about six months after I gave one of my kidneys. Of course she didn't want to go down the aisle, what was it she said, "Looking like a baby elephant in a communion frock" so we waited till after the baby was born for the actual wedding. It wasn't exactly a big wedding but almost all of the important people were there. Mom, my sister and Haley played bridesmaid. Skills and Nate stood up with me with Nate being my best man of course and Larry got to give his daughter away. The only other people we wanted there weren't. We never invited them or at least we never invited one of them. Guess we just didn't have the guts in the end to call her. To my knowledge Brooke still doesn't know Peyton and I are married. In fact I'm not even sure Brooke knows Peyton and I have returned to Tree Hill.

Peyton and I agree on one thing though. After this night is over me, her and Keith are gonna take a little road trip together…all the way up north to Illinois. It's time we all put these terrible years behind us and the three of us need to find a way back to the friendship we had before all this started. Peyton says 11 years is too long to be parted from her best friend and it's time we ended all the pain and moved on. Y'know I've only asked her once where she was all that time while we were falling apart. Her answer was simply "To hell and back!". I've never asked her again, in fact to be honest, I guess I really don't want to know. If she went anywhere similar to where Brooke and I went then I don't want to send her back there; she's too important to me both as the mother of my child and as my soulmate.

Earlier on I talked about "What if?" If A never happened would B happen? After all that's happened to us all I say SO WHAT! Sure Brooke, Peyton and I have had it rough these last 11 years but we're all finally in a place where we're happy and have our loved ones near. Looking back now on who I was 11 years ago if I had followed Peyton that night who's to say things would've been any better for us all. They may well've been much, much worse, who knows? So to those of you who say "what if" I say never let regrets or worries about "what ifs" ruin your life. If things are meant to be then they'll happen and if not then so what. And now if you'll all excuse me I think I've bored you enough and I'd like to dance with my wife before she loses all patience and drags my little brother up on the floor. Not even Nate deserves his feet trampled."

_From where she stood, in the shadows by the door to the hall, she watched the blonde walk down off the stage as a ripple of laughter greeted his last words. She'd stood there throughout his whole speech and, like the others seated around the hall, had cried and smiled at various points throughout the speech. She stood there and watched as he made his way across the hall towards the table where they all were sitting. She smiled faintly as she watched the slim blonde girl at the table stand up and lean in for his kiss as he reached her. Looking at the others at the table she saw the tall dark-haired man laugh as Peyton made some comment and kicked Luke in the shin at the same time. She'd arrived just as he was starting his speech at Tree Hill High's class of 2007 10 year reunion. Seeing him, Nate and Haley after so long away apart from them was an amazing feeling but seeing the blonde girl who'd been such a part of her early life again after 11 years was breathtaking. In so many ways she'd changed but she still retained that essential quality that had made her Peyton. That essence of fragility and strength that made people want to not only be around her but love her._

_As she stood there frozen in the doorway Luke straightened up, saying something to Nate, and saw her standing there. He froze for a brief moment before walking over and taking hold of her arm. "I'm glad you came," he whispered "How long've you been there? Why didn't you come over?" _

"_Since the start of your speech Luke," she choked out "I couldn't walk over there on my own. Will you help me?" _

_He smiled that old quirky smile of his and, still holding her arm, he turned leading her over to the table. A silence began to fall over the room as more and more people noticed them walking across the room. As they neared the table he held his finger to his lips as both Nate and Haley caught sight of them, warning them not to spoil the surprise. "Peyton?," He called, "I don't think we need to make that trip to Illinois after all."_

"_What do you mean Luke?" She replied turning her head "I thought you'd agreed we were goin..." Peyton's voice trailed off as she recognized the girl standing there with Lucas. "B..Brooke" She breathed in shock "W..Wha.."_

_Brooke stopped her with a finger over her lips, tears sparkling in her eyes. She reached out pulling Peyton into a tremendous hug with one arm and hauling Lucas in with the other. A cheer went up from those in the crowd who'd figured out what was going on as Haley and Nate made their way over to the three friends finally reunited after such a long time. They eventually let go of each other, tears flowing all around the table as for the first time in nearly eleven years the group of five friends were reunited…and if they had anything to do with it they would never be separate again._


End file.
